What is surprising is that legend and history have not elaborated the figure of Duncan-the-Last and his union with Siona Atreides as might be expected. Instead, they have actually dimmed the majesty of this incredible figure, who in light of the Dar-es-Balat recordings appears to have been a myth incarnate. Duncan-the-Last was, if such a thing is possible, a demiurge. He was instilled with forces and powers far beyond himself, and yet he was able to contain them within a human form. While further insights into Duncan-13724 await the integration of the Dar-es-Balat hoard with the records of the reign of Duncan and Siona and the Scattering, his brief age can justifiably be called the Salvation. Nayla the Fish Speaker was never the Judas as Holy Church proposes. It was Duncan and Duncan alone who was the archtraitor and the savior in one. Abroad in the realms of consciousness, his incantatory life and personality brought sentient life into harmony with the universe's caprice. Alive at last, he followed Siona from the death cave of the Divided God and brought the power and fire of magic to us all.
R.S.
Further references; DUNCAN IDAHO entries; SIONA ATREIDES; Leto II, Journal, SRC 70-A392; Siona Atreides, The Last Days, Arrakis Studies 218 (Grumman: United Worlds).
IJAZ
Prophecy that by its very nature cannot be denied; a major philosophical and psychological force during the melange-dominated age of the Atreides dynasty. Originating in the Terran concept of fate or predestination and continuing through Zensunni and Bene Gesserit philosophies, ijaz became a self-fulfilling prophecy itself. It was made undeniable and immutable in part by the collective belief in its reality and potency. Moreover, the visions of the future provided by melange and by the Ceremony of the Seed offered partial and clouded extrapolations, reinforcing the belief that there were in fact inviolate prophecies and unalterable future paths. The devastating wounds of ijaz, opened time and time again by the melange, finally destroyed the Atreides and brought about, indirectly, the Starvation and the Scattering.
With the breeding of Siona Atreides by Leto II and Duncan-the-Last by the Bene Tleilax, Leto II hoped to introduce chance to sentient beings, bringing their consciousnesses into harmony with the nature of existence. Leto planned to resolve a debate between fate and free will that had been belabored for over 20,000 years. Through Leto II's death and the Siona-Duncan union, some think actual freedom was introduced for the first time, and the destruction of ijaz brought humanity into a true harmony with the chaos of the universe.
IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION
The history of the Imperial administration began with the Treaty of Corrin, which first determined the relationship between the Landsraad and the new emperor. The first Imperial house, House Corrino of Salusa Secundus, had a limited understanding of the difficulties and potentials of ruling an empire, especially one which would come to include all the inhabited planets. Ignorance of what the normal state considered the ordinary characteristics of government explains the relative simplicity of the Treaty of Corrin. The treaty did, however, provide the emperor with an admirable basis for the growth of Imperial power, for it gave him authority in two crucial areas: finance and law. Paul Muad'Dib is said to have reminded the Landsraad that the Padishah emperor advised it to "control the coinage and the courts — let the rabble have the rest." We are not sure to which emperor he referred, but that philosophy certainly characterized Corrino rule.
Legally, the emperor was recognized by the Treaty of Corrin as superior to "any and all" of the states of the Landsraad. This legal recognition of the emperor's power was later to provide the foundation for the emperor's claim to make law himself, to serve as a judge, and to grant power to the nobles of the Great Houses.
Financially, the new emperor was granted authority by the treaty to levy taxes on the states which comprised the Landsraad. Two were soon instituted: the tribute, a money tax on the income of the provinces; and support levies, meant to be used for the purpose of "maintaining the peace and security of the realm." This included the support of the Imperial armed forces, and the tax could be paid either in cash or in recruits for the emperor's service.
None of the signatories of the Treaty of Corrin expected these powers to transform themselves into the Imperial bureaucracy which would exist some centuries later and, in fact, the Imperial government which emerged directly from the treaty was as deceptively simple as the document. The Great Houses were permitted to keep their own troops, sufficient for control of their territories and defense against their neighbors. This accomplished two ends. In the first place, it removed from the imperial House the burden of garrisoning every part of the empire. More than that, though, it recognized the nature of the Great Houses to expand at one another's expense and saw to it that they retained the means to do so. An effort to impose total peace upon the empire would not only have been foreign to the nature of House Corrino, it would also have been doomed to failure. Perhaps no other action could have so united the Great Houses as an attempt to deny them the right to make war upon their fellows. Only an Imperial power utterly secure in its own strength could have risked such a settlement; House Corrino, with the military force of the Sardaukar, was such a power.
The earliest administrative division of the empire was the province, the Imperial equivalent of a district within the system of the Landsraad: a province would include two or more solar systems. Each province was assessed an annual tribute. Collection was in the local currencies of each world, and that tribute was assessed by the House Corrino on the basis of records of the provincial income submitted by the Great Houses of the province. These reports were checked against those produced by Imperial financial agents known as "correctores," several of whom were stationed in each province. These functionaries not only checked the records of the Great Houses, they also supplemented their information with reports furnished by private agents — financial spies. These agents ultimately would be organized into the Imperial Fiscal Intelligence, the infamous IFI.
The beginnings of the Imperial legal system can be traced to the correctores' powers in the early reigns of the Imperial House. Shortly before the Great Financial Synod in the very first years of the reign of Saudir I, the correctors were granted the authority to decide cases with tax implications, subject to appeal to the emperor. Simple as this change seemed, it represented the intrusion of the authority of the emperor into the regional governments of the Great Houses. Since any case with financial effect could have tax "implications," virtually any case could be brought before the correctores. Few cases did not affect the participants monetarily. This technique began to circumvent the local judicial system on many planets. The only check lay in the attitudes of the correctores, not in any principles of law.
In addition to the matter of financial cases, a new category of crime developed: acts against the emperor or his government. Most court systems of the many governments of the Landsraad worlds had recognized the crime of treason. Now the person of the emperor, and his governmental officials, were added to the list of those people and offices against whom such a crime could be committed. Since the power of the emperor extended throughout all of the worlds controlled by the Imperium, cases of crimes against the emperor increased with astonishing speed. One of the factors in this rate of increase was the tendency for disgruntled or dishonest citizens to file false accusations of crimes against the Imperial throne. Courts often proved somewhat unwitting to disallow such accusations or to find the defendant innocent, for fear that the emperor would be offended.
After more than a century and a half the situation became so troublesome that a solution had to be found. The court calendars of virtually all the planets were so clogged that some defendants did not live to see their cases tried, and few could see a case through appeal unless they had become enmeshed with the law at a very early age. The Great Houses were becoming vocally resentful of what they saw as Imperial interference in their local affairs, since on many planets, especially those with more repressive governments, the Imperial system was doing the majority of the legal bu
siness. The reforms which cut this Gordian knot were the work of the emperor Negara II (reigned 123-184) and his legal advisor, the great jurist Berud Mekdum.
Under the system established by Mekdun, in order for a crime to become subject to the emperor's justice, a Procès-verbal had first to be lodged. Only the heads of Minor or Great Houses could bring such an accusation, which would be given under oath and before a truthsayer, to an Imperial corrector. This testimony would then be submitted to the governor of the imperial province, and to the Great House of the planet in question, if that House was not involved.
Once a Procès-verbal had been submitted, a Court of the First Instance would be convened, presided over by a representative of the provincial governor and a representative of the Sysselraad secretary, each of whom heard no other case. Only if both these officials agreed that an offense against the Imperium had been committed would the matter be sent to the Imperial governor for judgment. His decision could then be appealed through the ordinary Imperial system. There were stiff penalties for accusers whose case failed to be submitted to the governor by the two-man Court of First Instance, and these officials were mandated to bar all frivolous matters or any cases which used the Imperial system to settle private quarrels. Thus, the number of cases heard by the Imperial government declined drastically.
This change also had the effect of removing from planetary level all Imperial cases except those of a financial nature. These financial cases, which had in part begun the problem, were also strictly controlled. The power of the correctores was limited so that they could only hear cases directly bearing upon the taxes paid during the previous five years. In the event that such cases proved to involve deliberate fraud of the Imperial treasury recourse to the emperor's justice was sought, and then by the route of the Procès-verbal.
These reforms removed the Imperial government from the administration of the planets, where it had begun to make serious inroads into the powers of the Great Houses. It reestablished the early principle of the empire, that House Corrino was to stay out of the government of the Great Houses insofar as possible. The policy had two benefits: it retained the economic principles of keeping the burden of government on the shoulders of the Great Houses; in spite of this, it met with the approval of the Great Houses because the results decreased Imperial interference in their powers.
These results had great future significance. If the trends in government had been allowed to continue, the Imperial government might have swallowed the Landsraad and the local governments of the Great Houses; there might have been civil war between House Corrino and the Landsraad, with like outcome: the Imperial house left as the only power in the inhabited worlds. It is unlikely that the Imperial House could have maintained a stable government without the assistance of the Great Houses, the Landsraad, and the Guild. The burdens of direct control of such a vast area and number of worlds would have proved too great in the end, no matter how autocratic and powerful the rulers. The Imperium might have lasted for centuries, but not for millennia.
The simple system of the Treaty of Corrino proved adequate for the first centuries of the Imperium. But with the rapid expansion of the Imperium which followed upon the creation of CHOAM and the beginning of the Guild monopoly, this system was strained beyond tolerance. The number of worlds in the Imperium, in the end, exceeded 30,000, more than double the number that the emperor had ruled prior to the Great Financial Synod. Under such circumstances, the system of administration that obtained after the Treaty of Corrin was unable to deal with the manifold details of government within a simple system of provinces and central court. Thus, by the end of the first millennia of the Imperium's existence, the administrative system had markedly expanded.
The basic element of the system remained the province, still synonymous with the Landsraads' district. But both below and above this level, the structure became far more articulated. The larger provinces now became divided into districts. The Imperial district should not be confused with the Landsraad district. These Imperial provincial districts were controlled by either legal or military officials. Those districts which posed special military problems were governed by a Caid; the districts which were created because of difficulties of administration having to do with law or finance were watched over by a Praeses. Each of these officials was responsible and subordinate to the governor.
Provincial governors combined in their persons the military, judicial, financial and administrative authority of the province. Since no individual could hope to master all these aspects of responsibility, governors were provided with secretaries whose expertise lay in each of these categories. These secretaries presided over large offices of civil servants who dealt only with issues in their own area of competence. While each secretary was a powerful official in his own right, each also had to answer to the governor. In addition, only the governor was given an overall view of the activity of the entire province.
Above the provincial level, military authority was separated from other aspects of government. The military structure thus became a direct part of the Sardaukar, and the officers were Sardaukar officers. Immediately above the provincial level, military command passed to the hands of the Strategoi, each of whom commanded a Komarchy, garrisoned by a legion of Sardaukar. A Komarchy might correspond to the boundaries of at least two provinces, or it might contain somewhat more area. The limits were determined by military considerations and did not necessarily correspond to administrative boundaries. The distribution of the legion would vary according to the conditions within the Komarchy. From the level of the Komarchy, military command passed directly to the commander of the Sardaukar, the Hegemon, and thence to the emperor himself.
The division of civil government directly above that of the province was the Diocese. Presiding over each Diocese was a Logistos, whose responsibilities were financial and legal. The Logistoi were responsible for the collection of the tribute from each of the provinces within their Diocese, and the submission of the support levies from the Great Houses. They also served as judges, hearing those cases that had been directly referred to them by the provincial governors and those that had arrived at their level on appeal. Appealed cases were divided into financial and nonfinancial; financial cases were heard first by the Diocesan financial secretary, the Ratior, while nonfinancial cases were sent to the Cognitor, the legal secretary. Each of these officials presided over a sizable bureau of civil servants who were career professionals within their specialities.
Each Diocese was, in turn, part of a Sector, under the command of a Vicar, whose authority was again both financial and legal. The Vicar's responsibilities were great; his decisions could not be appealed. A Vicar would either decide to pass a case on to the level of the Imperial court or render his decision. If he refused to pass a case on, the matter ended there; right of appeal was not automatic from the decision of a Vicar. The offices of Vicars were also staffed with professionals who had special expertise in the many areas within which the Vicar might be asked to judge. The decision, however, was always his. The justification for this power lay in the contention that they were the last officials who might have some knowledge of the regional factors that might come into play in the cases which arose under their jurisdiction. An equally important consideration was the argument of the jurist Mekdun: "Even the emperor cannot decide everything; some cases must have a stop."
Compensation for the great power given the Vicars was attempted through the staffing of his office and through the various sorts of inspections to which all Imperial officials were subject. Each of the main secretaries working under a Vicar was appointed by the emperor, rather than being chosen by the Vicar. These men were responsible to the emperor for reports on the performance of their superior which were to be submitted no less frequently than each ninety days standard. In addition, there were the normal inspections from the Imperial court which examined the work of all officials, not only those at the Sector level, finally, there were the irregular, and often secret, inspectio
ns by those functionaries known as "Imperial hunter-seekers." these agents were sent out from the court with carte blanche from the emperor to investigate anything that caught their eye. Sometimes they were instructed to make themselves known to the officials whose administrations they were investigating; more often, they remained unknown.
At the level of the Imperial court, all issues came together in the person of the emperor, who acted with the advice of his chief counselors. In fiscal matters, the Imperial advisor was the Diocetes; the Imperial jurist was the Prefect. The commander of the Sardaukar, the Hegemon, also served as military chief of staff. Each of these powerful Imperial servants oversaw the day-to-day business of the imperial administration within their special purview as well as recommending courses of action to the emperor in any such cases that came before him.
While the reform and evolution of the Imperial administration did disengage the emperor from the direct government of the planets, some control of local government was exercised by House Corrino. The most important means of this lay in the emperor's control over any change of government, a power founded in the Treaty of Corrin.
That agreement had recognized the supremacy of the emperor over any and all of the various governments of the inhabited worlds. This statement was promptly — and permanently — interpreted by the Imperial house as meaning that all power was held as a grant from the emperor. While these grants were to Houses, the emperor reserved the right to approve choices of heirs. The hereditary rights of the Great Houses, then, were not unrestricted. Though the emperor would normally approve the choice of heir by a Great House, as long as local law had been obeyed, he was not bound to do so. Houses which he felt might be contemplating actions of which he might disapprove were often reminded of his veto.
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